Ice Dreams

It happens like clockwork when the Winter Olympics roll around. Children, and sometimes adults, rush out to the nearest ice-skating rink and sign up for lessons, hoping to fly like Elvis or twirl like Michelle and Tara.

This Olympic season is no different, with skating rinks around the Southland reporting nearly double their average enrollment.

But a former Olympic figure-skating medalist has a word of caution for would-be champions and their parents: Don’t set your expectations too high, because it’s a cold world out on that ice.

“Very rarely do you see an Olympic-caliber skater at your local rink,” said Tiffany Chin, 30, an instructor at the Easy Street Arena in Simi Valley since 1994. “And there’s no way I’m going to let any of my students have delusions of grandeur. Making the Olympics just doesn’t happen to most people.”

Chin struck silver and bronze at the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo in the short and long programs, respectively. She was just 16 but had been skating competitively around the world since she was 12. Chin first skated when she was 7 1/2, which many people thought was young at the time, she said.

Now, 3-year-olds are being signed up for lessons.

“I started when I was 4, on roller-blades,” said 6-year-old Julia Maddux of Camarillo.

With a red nose and a bright pink headband wrapped around her head, Julia was one of hundreds of children taking lessons on a recent morning in Simi Valley.

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Her skating companion, 7-year-old Sara Bess Judd of Moorpark, said she’s been watching the Olympics every night, and she hopes to be a U.S. skating team member some day.

“I have a lot of books about [U.S. Olympian] Tara Lipinski,” said Sara Bess, who started her lessons two years ago. “I’m amazed at what she does. I watch her, and I think, ‘I can do that.’ Well, maybe not the triple jump.”

Julia said she hopes to be an Olympian, too, but for a much different reason.

“My dad said he’ll give me a kitty if I make the Olympics,” she said. “That’s all I ever wanted.”

Dave Maddux said the promise of a pet was more of an inspirational tool than a carrot for young Julia. His daughter takes lessons because she wants to, not because he forces her to, he said.

“All we want as parents is for her to develop a passion for skating,” he said. “We don’t want her to do anything because we said to. We want her to love it.”

Sara Bess’ mother, Debi Judd, said she’s seen too many parents push their children into lessons. That was not the case with her daughter, she said.

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“I’ve seen tears coming down some of those cheeks, and eventually that kid is going to walk off the ice,” Judd said. “I think the most important thing is to have a child-coach relationship, not a parent-child-coach one. Parents need to just get out of the way.”

One mental health expert agrees that a demanding parent can result in disaster.

“Parents have to enable their children, not push them,” said Thousand Oaks psychologist Elizabeth Beale, who has counseled Ventura County children and adults for 30 years. “It becomes a problem when parents start trying to live out their dreams through their children.”

The image of a father or mother screaming from the sidelines when junior misses the pitch, a shot-on-goal or that last-second free throw is all too familiar to Beale.

“In particular, I’ve noticed that Little League experiences--between a father and a child--often come up in counseling,” she said.

Felicia Bright, a shift manager at the Pasadena Ice Skating Center, warns parents to keep their expectations realistic.

“There are some parents who come out during the Winter Olympics and have some pretty high hopes for their children,” Bright said. “We’d like to avoid that.”

Dave Maddux agrees. “It’s terrible,” he said. “You can really see it in the kid, that he or she doesn’t have the desire to be out there anymore.”

Those attitudes may be shifting, though, Chin said.

“There always will be parents who push too hard,” she said. “I think it’s more of a personality thing with the parent, but I really don’t see it that much anymore. I hope it’s dying off.”

Chin said she avoids giving young skaters too high a mark to reach for.

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“Thousands and thousands of kids will try this, but I tell them it takes a combination of skill, talent, determination, concentration and focus to be the best,” she said.

“I’ve seen a lot of talented kids, but they lack the dedication and focus that’s necessary to become, say, an Olympic champion.”

Chin’s Olympic training was grueling, and the expectation of making the Winter Games back then was much higher than it is today, she said.

“It’s nothing like it was 10 or 15 years ago,” Chin said. “Ten years ago, there wasn’t really even a recreational type of skating. Now there is. It’s really taken the whole ‘you’ve got to be an Olympic champion or else quit’ mind-set out of the picture.

“It’s become much more fun-oriented.”

Debi Judd said Sara Bess also skates only because she wants to.

“We’ll let her try swimming or gymnastics the moment she decides skating is not for her,” Judd said.

Chin says interest in figure skating has blossomed with the rise of American teens such as Michelle Kwan and Lipinski, and men’s skaters Elvis Stojko of Canada and Todd Eldredge of the United States.

Lipinski, Kwan and fellow American Nicole Bobek have been featured on recent magazine covers, soup cans and cereal boxes.

Chin said the cult of personality surrounding these young stars has rubbed off on some of her students, but most of the children just want to skate.

“Rarely do I see someone come in and immediately say, ‘I want to be like so-and-so,’ ” Chin said.

“Most kids watch TV and they’ve been inspired by someone, but I think parents and kids now have a better sense of reality about the rigors of professional sports. They’re much more educated about it today.”

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And those young skaters who come to realize they are better suited to gymnastics or swimming--or academics--than skating?

“I haven’t seen kids drop out when they realize they won’t be an Olympic skater,” Chin said. “Obviously, a 25-year-old who wants to take skating lessons isn’t trying to make the Olympics, but these kids start out with a shot. If they don’t have the level of dedication it takes, they continue to skate, for fun.”